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The Number and Relation of Characters
The Number and Relation of Characters The Number and Relation of Characters This got all messed up, I am not shure this article is usefull. Basicaly don’t put to many characters in a short story. 'After the Battle, " Joseph A. Alt Speaking Present, but ;not Speaking. Mentioned, but not Present Total sheler. . . . 2 0 2 4 'de "The Piece of String, '" Guy Mau passant (s8) . kallil". 1n11;11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3 4 2 0 3 7 8 "A Yarn Without a Moral, " Morgan Robertson (27) 5 0 3 8 "The Ambitious Guest. " Nathaniel Hawthorne (works) . . . . . . . . 8 0 2 to "How Gavin Buse Put it to Meg Lownie, " James M. Barrie (A. . . . 3 o 7 ro "Santa Fe Charlie's Kindergarten. " Thomas A. Janvier (Santa Fe's Partner) 5 3 6 14 "yuite So, " Thomas Bailey Aldrich 24). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 o II z6 "The Man Who Would be King, " Rudyard Kipling (28) 5 2 zr ill "The Black Pearl, " Victorien Sardou (xi) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 o 14 a, Average. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 to 5 6 12 to 13 Following, in part, the method employed by Professor Selden C. Whitcomb in The Study of a Novel, I have set down a table of those characters actually individualized in ten representative short-stories. Of course, the practice of ten authors could not establish a precedent even if their practices did not vary as widely as they do, but it will be observed that the best writers employ few speaking characters in the short-story, and they rarely equal the number of silent actors. The relations which the characters are to sustain toward each other will have a strong bearing upon the number to be introduced, as the foregoing table will suggest. In defining the short-story I have limited it to the presentation of one preeminent character; and this is the case even where the study is of two characters each powerfully influencing the other. The usual course is to play the minor characters as contributory to the central figure. But the author cannot always choose which character is to win the spot-light on his stage. Sometimes one character will come to the front in spite of plot and plan. The person making the greatest sacrifice may overtop the one possessing the most pleasing qualities, the foil may unexpectedly outshine the leading light. Some characters naturally belong in the foreground, some in the middle-distance, others in the dim background. Therefore respect their native qualities and treat each with a painter's regard for perspective. To color the one too brightly would be to mar the harmony of the whole as much as to paint the central character in neutral tint. QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES FOR CLASS OR INDIVIDUAL STUDY I. Make a list of characters you have met who are interesting enough to be delineated in short-stories. Give a sentence or two to each to set forth their characteristics. Specifically state how you would modify their everyday characteristics for the purposes of fiction. Make a composite characterization by combining the traits of two or more. Make complete, compressed notes of the life and characteristics of one character in the list (question 1), after the manner of Turgenieff. Follow Turgenieff's method by conceiving a character and building a plot around his personality. After you have decided on a character worth characterizing in a short-story, trace in writing the chain of ideas by which the conception arose and developed in your mind. Select two short-stories in which character-drawing is especially well done, giving reasons for your opinion. Nom: The instructor may wish to include character novels in this assignment. 8. Make a study of several late issues of at least four prominent magazines and say what types of character stories they publish. In the manner of the schedule on page 224, list the actually individualized characters in four well-known short stories. Write a character-story with careful attention to the relation of the characters to the foreground, middle-distance, and background. Make a list of such characteristic national (French, etc. ), sectional (Northwestern, etc. ), class, professional, and local traits as could be embodied in fiction. Write a character-story in the joint typical-individual style. What do you understand by a character that is (a) simple, (b) complex, © inconsistent? Make a list of worn-out, conventional characters often seen in fiction. Outline a character and a setting 4a) in harmony, (b) in contrast, with each other. Delineate a character by direct Description, without the use of dialogue. Delineate the same character by suggestion. I& Present pictures of the following moods: (a) a girl struggling to retain faith in her college chum; (b) a youth deciding to commit his first crime; © an old man just dismissed from a "life-long" position. Invent at least five other such situations involving character changes. (a) Criticize the names in any short-story you please; (b) select a short-story in which the characters are well named, and show why. za. Take the portrait of some person unknown to you and try to read the character from the face, bearing, and dress. Make a list of prominent physical traits (a squint for one), saying what they mean to you. For example, begin with faces which suggest animals, without necessarily revealing anything bestial. Suggestively describe the dress of ten different characters, differentiating them according to occupations, nationality, class, morals, etc. 24. Describe in your favorite way, but as compactly as possible, the following characters: (a) a romantic blunderer; (b) two characters in marked contrast; © a lover of music who fondly believes he can sing—but can't ; (d) a serious man who is always mistaken for a jester; (e) a woman who loves to settle difficulties but who succeeds only in making things worse. NOTE: In her elementary but suggestive little volume, The Story-Teller's Art, p. 43, Miss Charity Dye says that character may be studied: " 1. By its innate tendencies, or its inner promptings, independent of any external influence. "2. By its environment, or surroundings, and the way in which it has overcome them or been overcome by them. In the light of heredity, or inherited traits. • By its manifestations of willing, thinking, feeling. • • By its achievements, or what it has accomplished in the light of its effort and opportunity, and by the development it makes. • • By noting all that a character says and does, all that is said and done to him, and all that is said about him. • • By noting the dominant motive of his life, whether it be love, hate, revenge, a sense of duty, selfishness, or forgiveness. • "8. A character may be studied by putting one's self in another's place; by being the apple-woman, the newsboy, the bootblack for a time, and looking at life through their eyes. Be a beggar, a millionaire, a master, or a slave, and imagine what you would do in each situation. " From among these methods the instructor may select such as will make satisfactory assignments for (a) character study, (b) character delineation. Category:Character